The Best Scary Movies Set in the Bay Area
Bay Curious
In this episode of Bay Curious, host Olivia Allen Price sits down with Carly Severn and Peter Hartlaub to discuss the best horror movies set
Key takeaways
- The Bay Area's climate and topography, specifically the fog and hills, act as living elements in horror films.
- John Carpenter's 'The Fog' utilizes local landmarks like Point Reyes Lighthouse to create an evocative atmosphere.
Main topics
- Bay Area Horror Cinema
- Cinematic Filming Locations
Notable quotes
The fog, you know, what is scarier than that?
Conclusion
A nostalgic celebration of how local landscapes transform familiar str
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:01) From KQED. Speaker 4 (0:04) Right now, we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known. I'm David Remnick, and each week on The New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Walz, Katonji Brown-Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Charlemagne the God, and so many more. That's all on The New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts. Speaker 6 (0:33) The firehose of news from America can feel like a lot these days. Speaker 1 (0:38) If you're trying to figure out what to make of it all, we got you. Speaker 6 (0:42) I'm Katie Simpson. And Speaker 1 (0:43) I'm Paul Hunter. We're correspondents here in Washington. Speaker 6 (0:46) Working just around the corner from where much of the action is taking place. Speaker 1 (0:51) Two blocks from the White House. Speaker 6 (0:52) And that's the name of our podcast. Speaker 1 (0:54) For top-notch analysis of U.S. politics from a Canadian perspective. Find Two Blocks in the White House every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 6 (1:03) Including YouTube. Speaker 1 (1:04) A reporter receives a shocking tip about something that happened inside a woman's prison. He starts asking questions, and what she uncovers is far bigger than one disturbing event. A deeply entrenched system, the people it protects, and the women who risk everything to challenge it from the inside. Snap Studios and KQED present We Are Jane Doe. a three-part investigative series. Listen on Snap Judgment wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 2 (1:33) If you've been following Bay Curious over the years, you may have detected by now that Halloween is my favorite holiday, and it's not even close. I think part of my obsession is the changing of the season, of course, from the go-go-go of summer to the, you know, cup-of-tea vibes we get in early fall. And I feel like... During trick-or-treating, the streets of our neighborhoods come alive like no other time of year, all packed with excited kids, adults laughing with each other, and teenagers in the shadows doing whatever it is teenagers do. And of course, the costumes. Now, I love and elaborate something that takes weeks of planning, multiple trips to the craft store, and several late nights to come together. But to get into the spirit this year, I am feeling called... to the couch. It's been a busy summer and I'm ready to just sit and chill a little bit and watch some scary movies. As is my inclination, perhaps obsession, I figure I may as well make them Bay Area scary movies. So as I was creating my watch list, I decided to call my two most trusted friends when it comes to all things Bay Area film and ask them, what should we be watching this spooky season? So here to offer their top recommendations are... Carly Severn, KQED's Senior Editor of Audience News. Hey, Carly. Hello, Olivia. The calls are coming from inside the house. Ah, they are. Spoiler alert, we're all sitting around one table. And Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle's culture critic. Welcome, Peter. I Speaker 3 (3:04) am so glad to be back with you all. Speaker 2 (3:05) Yay! I'm glad you're saying glad to be back because this is Getting the Gang Back Together. Because a few years ago, this same trio, we made an episode around Christmastime with your recommendations for Bay Area movies at the request of a listener. But today we're back with a spooky twist on the theme. And I couldn't be more excited. Oh, we're like the killer that just won't die. Before we get into your recs, I want to establish your credentials as people who know scary things. So I've got a quick list of warm-up questions, and I'm looking for quick and punchy answers here. Are you ready? Ready. I'm ready. All right, Carly, starting with you, best Halloween candy? Speaker 5 (3:44) Mini Twix or mini Snickers? No question. Mini. I love a little fun size because then you can eat 5,000 of them. Wonderful. Speaker 2 (3:52) Peter, favorite Halloween candy? Speaker 3 (3:54) Fun size Heath bar. And here's the thing. The people giving away the full size candy bar often are so wealthy, you have to walk way up the path and you're getting less candy overall. So hot tip, the fun size is okay. Speaker 2 (4:07) All right. What about worst Halloween candy? What do you get and you just groan? What's that corn thing? Candy corn? Yeah, candy corn. Yeah, horrible. Get it off the planet. Oh my god, I love candy corn. I'm sorry. This recording is over. I'll see myself out. This is like Speaker 3 (4:21) Black Lickler-ish. This is a very, very controversial one. I'm going with those black and orange wrapped up little peanut butter toffee things that always end up in the... bottom of your kid's Halloween bag after you've stolen all of the rest of their candy. Speaker 2 (4:36) It's interesting that toffee shows up in both your favorite and least favorite candies, though. Speaker 3 (4:40) Yes, there's good and bad toffee. Speaker 2 (4:42) All right. What about the place in the Bay Area you would be most afraid to spend the night by yourself? Speaker 5 (4:49) I had to think about this because I think there's some haunted hotel rooms, but I think I'd kind of be into that in a sort of 1408 way. So I decided Golden Gate Park because the lighting there is not good. And what if I cannot find my way out? Speaker 2 (5:02) Okay. So you're afraid of getting lost. I am. Peter, what about you? Speaker 3 (5:05) I'm afraid of heights. So the top of Sutro Tower, which in addition to being super scary from a heights point of view, has a haunted elevator going up. I've been on it. We don't Speaker 2 (5:16) want Speaker 3 (5:16) to talk about it. Speaker 2 (5:17) All right. And what about, this is my favorite question, actually, the favorite costume you've ever worn. I'm going to Peter first for this one. Speaker 3 (5:24) I made a Gandalf costume for my son that had a light up staff and I loved it so much that I altered it and wore it myself two years later. Speaker 2 (5:33) Nice. How old was he at the time? He Speaker 3 (5:34) was seven and didn't know who Gandalf was. This was strictly performative parenting. But I did have him slamming it on the ground and saying, you shall not pass. Really entertaining. Speaker 5 (5:46) The parental equivalent of making your kid wear the Ramones T-shirt. Very much so. Yeah. Speaker 2 (5:51) I feel personally attacked by that. Carly, what about you? Speaker 5 (5:55) I made a really good Shelley Duvall from The Shining, but I think a couple of years previous, I was Pris, the Daryl Hannah robot character from Blade Runner. And I looked fine. I'm just going to say it. Speaker 2 (6:12) Not to humble brag, but no, no, it's a long time. You can boast about yourself if it's a long time ago. What do you think makes the Bay Area such a good background for a horror film? I Speaker 3 (6:23) think there are two things that elevate the Bay Area over a lot of other cities, the climate and the topography. And with climate. The fog, you know, what is scarier than that? What could come through the fog? Constantly changing unpredictable weather, I think, is scarier than being in Los Angeles and, oh, it's 70 degrees again. Topography, you're going over the hill. What's going to be over that hill? It's kind of there's this living element to. exploring a city and not knowing what's going to be around the next curve, not knowing what's going to be over the next hill. And I think those two things sort of like become characters in some of these films that we're going to discuss today. Speaker 5 (7:05) Completely agree. And I think a lot about this. patch of the West Coast as well, that it can have that end of the line feeling. You have gone as far west as you can. And